Get excited: future Samsung mirrorless cameras may run on Android

Samsung will next week launch a mirrorless camera running on Android – and that’s coming straight from the horse’s (or rather the CEO’s) mouth. According to Korea Times, Samsung CEO Shin Jong-Kyun said a London event on 20th June will see the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy Camera 2: “Samsung will release our latest mirrorless camera that runs on Google’s Android software.”

The original Galaxy Camera was an interesting product, shoehorning the mobile OS into a capable point-and-shoot body – but a Galaxy Camera 2 offering the same mirrorless capabilities as Samsung’s ever-improving NX range? That’s truly exciting.

It means you’d have the flexibility afforded by Samsung’s line-up of NX lenses, which range from ultra-wide to telephoto zoom; you’d have the high image quality afforded by a large, DSLR-quality sensor and advanced image processing engine; and then you’d be able to quickly edit and share the results using any number of Android apps.

Better image quality and simpler sharing

Think of how your Instagram photos would improve when, instead of using a tiny 8MP phone camera, you’re taking them with a large aperture prime lens and a 20.3MP APS-C sensor. Or how easy it’d be to send images to Facebook, Flickr or Google+ via Wi-Fi using a high quality smartphone-style touchscreen as opposed to fumbling around with buttons.

Samsung has already made great strides in the social, connected side of photography, both through the original Galaxy Camera and mirrorless models like the NX300. The latter comes with Wi-Fi and built-in apps for sharing and uploading photos and videos, but it doesn’t come close to offering the elegance and simplicity of photo sharing on a smartphone.

One note of caution: “mirrorless” can refer to any camera, well, without a mirror. In general, it’s a term used for interchangeable lens cameras without the traditional DSLR pentaprism and mirror, but strictly speaking it could mean a regular point-and-shoot model. So there’s a chance that the Galaxy Camera 2 could end up merely being a better version of the first Galaxy Camera.